(‘Brother Square-Toes’—Rewards and Fairies)
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!
Source: A Choice of Kipling's Verse (1943)

Only a Dad
Edgar Guest
Only a dad with a tired face,
Coming home from the daily race,
Bringing little of gold or fame
To show how well he has played the game;
But glad in his heart that his own rejoice
To see him come and to hear his voice.
Only a dad with a brood of four,
One of ten million men or more
Plodding along in the daily strife,
Bearing the whips and the scorns of life,
With never a whimper of pain or hate,
For the sake of those who at home await.
Only a dad, neither rich nor proud,
Merely one of the surging crowd
Toiling, striving from day to day,
Facing whatever may come his way,
Silent whenever the harsh condemn,
And bearing it all for the love of them.
Only a dad but he gives his all
To smooth the way for his children small,
Doing with courage stern and grim,
The deeds that his father did for him.
This is the line that for him I pen:
Only a dad, but the best of men.
"Only a Dad" was published in "A Heap o' Livin'"
(The Reilly & Lee Co., 1916)

FATHERS WHO GIVE HOPE
John Piper | Desiring God

Scripture: Colossians 3:21
Fathers, do not provoke your children, lest they become discouraged.
ur text is straightforward
and simple this morning:
“Fathers, do not provoke
your children, lest they become discouraged.” It divides naturally into three parts:
1. First, there is the address, “Fathers.”
2. Second, there is the command,
“Do not provoke your children.”
3. Third, there is the purpose of the
command, “Lest they become
discouraged.”
We will look at these three parts
of the text one at a time in reverse
order. First, we will direct our attention to the goal of Christian fathers,
namely, rearing children who are
not discouraged. Second, we will
look at the duty of Christian fathers,
namely, not to do those things that
discourage children. And finally, we
will focus on the leader in Christian
parenthood; namely, fathers.
But first a word about the fatherhood of God.
The Fatherhood of God
In the Lord’s Prayer Jesus taught
his disciples to call God Father: “Our
Father who art in heaven, hallowed
be thy name.” He taught that God is
not everyone’s Father. In John 8:42,
44 he said to those who refused to
follow him, “If God were your Father,
you would love me, for I proceeded
and came forth from God . . . You are
of your father the devil, and your will
is to do your father’s desires.”
God is the Father only of those
who are led by the Spirit of his Son.
In Romans 8:9, 14–15 Paul says,
Anyone who does not have the
Spirit of Christ does not belong to
him . . . All who are led by the Spirit of
God are the sons of God. For you did
not receive the spirit of slavery to fall
back into fear, but you have received
the Spirit of sonship. When we cry,
“Abba! Father!” it is the Spirit himself
bearing witness with our spirit that
we are children of God.
Not everyone can lay claim to
the privilege of knowing God as Father. Only those who are born of God
(John 1:13), who receive Christ (John
1:12), and who are led by the Spirit
(Romans 8:14) have the right to receive the inheritance of the children
— promises like Matthew 7:11, “If
you then, who are evil, know how to
give good gifts to your children, how
much more will your Father who is
in heaven give good things to those
who ask him!” The privilege of prayer
and the promise that God will work
all things together for your good is
part of the inheritance of sonship.
That is what it means to have God as
your Father.
There are two reasons I begin
with this word about the fatherhood
of God. One is that I believe all human fatherhood should be patterned on the divine fatherhood. The
overarching guide for every father
should be to live in such a way that
his children can see what God the
Father is like. They ought to see in
their human father a reflection — albeit imperfect — of the heavenly Father in his strength and tenderness,
in his wrath and mercy, in his exaltation and condescension, in his surpassing wisdom and patient guidance. The task of every human father
is to be for his children an image of
the Father in heaven.
The other reason I begin with
the fatherhood of God is to give this
message relevance for everyone in
this room whether you are a father
or not; and whether you had a Christian father or not. I want to make
clear from the outset that the sadness many may feel at never having
had a father like the father I will describe, and the sadness others may
feel at never having been a father like
the father I will describe — that sadness can be swallowed up and overcome with joy this morning because
God offers his fatherhood to anyone
who will accept the gift of adoption
by trusting Christ and yielding to be
led by the Holy Spirit.
There are two ways to listen to
this message this morning. One is to
take it as a straightforward exhortation from the Word of God to fathers
on how to rear their children. The
other is to take it as a parable pointing to the way the Father in heaven
loves those who believe and follow
his Son. Frankly, I hope all of you
hear it in both senses.
1. “Lest They
Become Discouraged”
Let’s go to the text and begin with
the last phrase of Colossians 3:21,
“Fathers, do not provoke your children, lest they become discouraged.”
The goal of a good father is to rear
children who are not discouraged.
The word implies losing heart, being listless, spiritless, disinterested,
moody, sullen, with a kind of blank
resignation toward life. Don’t be the

O

person. Instead develop a style of fatherhood that produces the opposite
of discouragement.
The Opposite of Discouragement
Now what is that? I would sum it
up in three characteristics.
1. The opposite of being discouraged
is being hopeful.
2. The opposite of being discouraged
is being happy.
3. The opposite of being discouraged is being confident and courageous.
So I would say that the negative
form of verse 21 really implies a positive command as well. It says, “Fathers, do not provoke your children,
lest they become discouraged.” But
it means not only avoid one kind of
fatherhood; it also means pursue
another kind; namely, the kind of fatherhood which gives hope instead
of discouragement; and gives happiness instead of discouragement; and
gives confidence and courage.
Distinctly Christian Teaching
If we stopped right here, we
would not have said anything distinctly Christian. There is not one
parent in ten thousand who thinks
that the aim of parenthood should
be to discourage children. But the
apostle Paul would be distressed if
all I did were to use his words here
simply to express some everyday
common sense, or some natural
wisdom. He was not inspired by the
Holy Spirit to confirm the insights
of Dr. Spock. He was inspired to
teach parents things that no natural
eye has seen and no natural ear has
heard (1 Corinthians 2:9–13).
Here is what I mean. Paul’s
teaching makes it clear that when he
says we should be fathers who give
hope instead of discouragement, he
means hope in GOD, not hope in
money or hope in popularity or hope
in education or hope in a spouse or
hope in professional success. If you
had asked Paul, or Jesus, “What kind
of freedom from discouragement do
you want our children to have?” he
would not have said, “I want your
children to be freed from discouragement by being filled with hope
that they will become wealthy . . . or
well-known, or intellectual, or married, or successful.” We know that is
not what he means. He means, be
the kind of fathers who do not discourage your children but rather fill
them with hope in God.
Happiness That Kills
and Happiness in God
And when we consider happiness as the opposite of discouragement, Paul would not be content if
a father simply made his child feel
good by giving him whatever he
wanted. There is a happiness that
kills. To some kinds of happiness
the Scripture says, “Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your
joy to dejection” (James 4:9). There
is a happiness that has nothing to do
with God, and therefore has no value in the sight of God. It comes from
the creation alone and not from the
Creator. That isn’t what Paul wants
fathers to put in the place of discouragement.
But there is another joy that comes
to expression, for example, in
Psalm 4:7–8,
Thou hast put more joy in my
heart
than they have when their grain
and wine abound.
In peace I will both lie down and
sleep;
for thou alone, O Lord, makest me
dwell in safety.
Fathers, don’t discourage your
children, but fill them with joy in
God! Teach them early on — and
show them earlier yet — that through
many sufferings they must enter the
kingdom (Acts 14:22), but that they
can rejoice in sufferings, knowing
that “suffering produces endurance,
and endurance produces character,
and character produces hope” —
IN GOD (Romans 5:3–4). Don’t discourage them. Make them happy in
God by helping them to hope in God.
Self-Confidence
and God-Confidence
And when we consider confidence as the opposite of discouragement, the message of Scripture takes
a dramatic turn away from the common sense natural wisdom of the
world.
The world says: Don’t discourage
a child; build up his self-confidence.
The Scripture says: Don’t discourage a child; build up his God-confidence. In fact the Scripture is more
precise than that; it teaches: Don’t
discourage a child, but do your best
to root out his self-confidence and
replace it with a confidence in God.
And when it teaches us to root out
self-confidence, it means root out
the desire to be and to appear selfconfident.
The Scripture knows that most
people don’t succeed in being selfconfident. Most people are quite unhappy about their inability to appear

and in control. So when the Scripture teaches us to root out self-confidence, it means go for the root, not
the half-withered branches. Go for
the DESIRE to be self-confident, not
the meager manifestations of it that
make their way into peoples’ actions.
Self-Confidence
Being Rooted Out of Paul
One vivid illustration of how
Paul’s heavenly Father was patiently
working to root out Paul’s self-confidence is given in 2 Corinthians 1:8–9.
Here is a description of how God the
Father was working on Paul twenty
years after his conversion, which
means this is a very deeply rooted sin
in all of us. He writes,
We do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, of the affliction we
experienced in Asia; for we were
so utterly, unbearably crushed
that we despaired of life itself.
Why, we felt that we had received
the sentence of death; but that
was to make us rely [or: be confident] not on ourselves but on God
who raises the dead.
In other words, the divine purpose of Paul’s affliction was (as it
is the purpose of all good fatherly
discipline) to root out the remaining self-confidence of Paul’s heart
and to cast him on God alone. Why?
Because God didn’t want him to be
confident? Because he wanted him
to be listless, spiritless, moody, sullen, weak, fearful? No! It was God
who came to Paul in Corinth and
said, “Do NOT be afraid, but speak
and do NOT be silent; for I am with
you.” So the confidence that we are
to build into our children is not selfconfidence, but confidence in the
grace and power of God. “Do not be
afraid . . . I AM WITH YOU.”
The Goal of Biblical Fathers
Andrew Bonar, the 19th century Scottish pastor, said concerning
the teaching of children, “We tell
them, ‘You are sinners, exposed to
God’s wrath and curse, and you cannot save yourselves; but God’s own
Son can save you, by Himself bearing that wrath and curse.’” In other
words you teach a child to despair
of all self-confidence and direct his
desire for confidence to the grace of
God. The goal of biblical fathers is to
have children who say (with Psalm
60:11–12):
O grant us help against the foe,
for vain is the help of man!
With God we shall do valiantly;
it is he who will tread down our foes.
A good father will ponder: How
can I be like my own heavenly Father? How can I banish self-reliance
from the heart of my children and fill
them with confidence and courage
and zeal and boldness that are rooted in the grace and power of God
and not in themselves? How can I be
the kind of father whose children do
not lose heart or become spiritless
or listless or sullen or discouraged,
but are filled with hope in God and
happiness in God and confidence
in God and courage to attempt great
things for the glory of God?
That question leads us to turn
now to the second part of our text;
namely, the duty of Christian parents to not provoke their children.
2. “Do Not Provoke Your Children”
“Fathers, do not provoke your
children, lest they become discouraged.” Again we notice that the commandment is negative — something
to be avoided. It is a warning against
the misuse of legitimate authority.
Paul has just said in verse 20, “Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord.” That
gives to parents tremendous authority and responsibility under God.
Children are to do what parents say.
Ruining a Child’s
Confidence in God
Now in verse 21 he cautions fathers against a misuse of this Godgiven authority. The misuse he has in
mind is that fathers might treat their
children in such a way that their spirit is broken and they become hopelessly discouraged. Paul calls this
misuse “provoking” them: “Do not
provoke your children.”
In Ephesians 6:4 a different word
is used that specifically means, “Do
not provoke to anger.” But this is a
very general word here in Colossians
3:21. It can even be used positively in
2 Corinthians 9:2 where it says that
the Christians in Achaia provoked
the Christians in Macedonia to be
more generous. In other words, they
“stirred them up,” or “motivated”
them.
In choosing the broad and general word I think Paul would have
us teach that parents should avoid
everything that ruins a child’s confidence in God and leaves him hopeless and discouraged. This requires
tremendous wisdom from fathers,
because not all short term discouragements result in long term hopelessness. On the contrary, our heavenly Father clearly brings short term
frustrations and discouragements

new footing of faith. Great wisdom is
needed here.
So let’s ask, then, What do fathers
do that provoke children to longterm discouragement and hopelessness? I’ll mention two things.
Failing to Be Happy
and Hopeful in God
First, some fathers fail to BE
happy and hopeful and confident
in God. Fathers, what you ARE in relation to God is far more important
than any particular parenting technique you try to employ. Will your
children hope in God if you hope in
money? Will your children be happy in God if they see that fishing is
a happier experience for you than
worship? Will your children be confident in God if your whole demeanor communicates the desire to be
seen as self-confident?
The most important work that a
father can do for the sake of his children is to be converted. The most important strategy for rearing children
is to become a new man in Christ —
whose hope and happiness and confidence are in God and not in himself.
We know this is true from Scripture because there we are taught to
imitate our heavenly Father. We are
told to be holy as he IS holy (1 Peter
1:16). We are told to be merciful as he
IS merciful (Luke 6:36). To be a good
child is to copy daddy. It honors a father to be imitated, and we are commanded to honor our fathers. And so
the most important question a father
can ask is not what shall I teach my
children, but rather who am I before
the living God and before my children?
That is the first thing that fathers
can do to provoke their children
to long-term discouragement and
hopelessness — they can fail to BE
hopeful, happy, and confident in
God.
Disciplining in an Impulsive,
Erratic, and Inconsistent Way
The second thing that fathers
do which provokes children to long
term discouragement and hopelessness is to discipline them in an impulsive, erratic and inconsistent way.
Unpredictable, impulsive, hostile
discipline makes children fearful,
bitter, deceitful, and discouraged.
They don’t know where or why the
explosion will come next. They say
to themselves, “What’s the use! How
can I hope that being good is any
better than being bad?” And so the
spirit of moral hope is broken, and in
its place comes calculated, deceitful,
discouraged maneuvering.
On the other hand, when discipline is controlled and appropriate
and consistent and based on clear
rules and principles of justice in the
home, an atmosphere is created
where children flourish in freedom.
They know the limits and they feel
secure and free to dream and play
and plan and work inside those limits of righteousness.
They gain confidence that this is
the way God is. He is not a capricious
God. He is not impulsive or erratic or
inconsistent. There is order. There is
justice tempered with mercy. There
is hope and encouragement. Why,
I might even be able to accomplish
something of value or even greatness
if I fit into this order and depend on
the goodness of the Father who loves
me like this.
So fathers, don’t provoke your
children by being impulsive, erratic,
or inconsistent in your discipline. Be
like your Father in heaven, so that
your children can know him and become hopeful and happy and confident in him.
Much more could be said about
the kinds of things that provoke longterm discouragement and hopelessness in children. But time is out.
3. “Fathers . . . “
We can only briefly refer to the
third part of the text; namely, the
address: “Fathers . . . ” Verse 20
said, “Children, obey your parents.”
This clearly teaches that mothers
as well as fathers are to be obeyed.
Mothers and fathers have a shared
authority over the children. But in
verse 21 fathers are addressed in
particular.
Why this is so is the issue we will
take up tonight. There is a peculiar
role that the Scripture gives to husbands and fathers. Fathers bear a special responsibility for the moral life of
the family. So I urge you to take that
responsibility, fathers, and that you
be the kind of man who gives hope
and happiness and confidence to
your children because you yourself
have found your hope and your happiness and your confidence in God.
John Piper (@JohnPiper)
is founder and teacher of
desiringGod.org and chancellor
of Bethlehem College & Seminary.
For 33 years, he served as pastor
of Bethlehem Baptist Church,
Minneapolis, Minnesota. He is
author of more than 50 books,
including Reading the Bible